Measuring immigrant integration policy: notes for a mixed-methodological approach

Although the issue of immigrant integration has long been present in the sociological debate, it has undergone further development in recent decades. Especially, in the European context, unlike that of North America there has been a lack of interest in the long-term effects of migration policies. Also in countries that have historically been nations of emigration, the increase in migratory flows from third world countries has forced national and EU institutions to adopt policies aimed at fostering integration of new arrivals in host societies. However, the differences between the various European countries and the initial marginality of the action of the European institutions has led to the development of different models of integration. Thus, it is very difficult to compare the different European realities. Since there is no univocal definition of the concept of integration, the consequent formulation of multiple proposals for measuring integration levels prevails. In this paper, after a review on the main theoretical contributions on the topic, the most relevant proposals aimed at measuring integration will be reported.